Vignettes
by pia-lexandra
Summary: "He once thought that with the dead walking around like they'd inherited the earth, he'd stop being afraid of things that go bump in the night." The second in a series of character studies centered around how a certain character's death affected each of them. This chapter is Carl's, set in S3.
1. Daryl: Alone

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>He didn't know why he kept it when he didn't have a single good reason for taking it in the first place. Yet as he stormed out of the RV, his foot had accidentally kicked it out the door and before he knew what he was doing he had stopped, yanked it up off the ground where it had fallen, and shoved it forcefully once more through his belt.<p>

Maybe he thought she wouldn't miss it, or wouldn't care. _That wasn't Sophia_, after all, that small, broken body wrapped in an old horse blanket, and if she couldn't bring herself to watch as they put her in the ground, what use would she have for a damn doll?

And so he took it, and it stayed there with him as one by one they buried the dead. No one noticed-or, if they did, no one dared to mention it-and when the last shovelful of dirt had been thrown on the tiny grave, he'd grabbed his bow, slung his pack across his shoulders, and trudged across the field with every intention of leaving the whole sorry lot of them behind for good.

His boots kicked up little clouds of dust as he picked his way through the draught-ridden soil, and still the doll stayed tucked in his belt, following close behind him like a little shadow, its stained and dirty arm waving haplessly in time with his strides. He had almost reached the edge of the property when it fell. If he'd kept up his pace, he'd have left it and the farm behind in a matter of seconds, but as soon as he felt it slip, he whipped round to retrieve it.

The grass had grown tall and unruly in the summer months, so the little thing was almost completely hidden amidst the undergrowth. He threw off his pack and crouched low to the ground. It didn't take long to find. He picked it up and brushed it off with a little more care than was warranted, then he sat back on his heels, kneeling amid the dying grass and the setting sun, and stared down into the doll's blue, unblinking eyes.

Sophia was dead.

He didn't know which stung more: that he'd failed, or that he'd talked himself into believing that he could succeed. He wasn't stupid. He knew as well as the rest of them that the longer she stayed missing, the less likely it was that they'd find her alive. He'd lived in the world long enough to know that clinging to hope when there was none was less than useless. But whatever it was that drove him back into those woods each day didn't die easily, and the sight of that little girl blindly picking her way through the decaying bodies that littered the ground around her was like an iron fist crashing into his solar plexus.

His eyes flickered darkly up at the farmhouse in the distance. He didn't need those people. He could hunt for himself, defend himself, tend to his own wounds himself-he'd been doing it his whole damn life, and as far as he was concerned there wasn't much difference between the world before things went to hell, and after. Merle had understood that.

_Ain't nothin' in the world worth sticking your neck out for, little brother, when the only thanks you'll ever get is a fist to the jaw, or a broken rib._

Or, he thought bitterly, an arrow through the side, or a bullet to the head, or the torn and bloodied body of a little girl who was pretty much dead the minute she ran into those woods alone.

No. He didn't need any of them and, for all the difference it had made, they sure as hell didn't need him. It had only ever been him and Merle before the turn, and Dixons had always been better off alone.

But dead or alive, Merle was long gone, and the ratty object in his hands seemed suddenly to remind him that it had been a long time since he'd been truly on his own...

He got up, stuffed the doll unceremoniously into his pack, and set up camp.

It was a half-formed thought that had been tugging at the back of his mind for days, but now it seemed to grab hold of everything around him and take shape. Not once had he seen Carol leave the safety of the farm except to drive to and from the highway with fresh hope and supplies. But that night she crossed the open field as though she owned it, and it tugged even harder as she stared back at him with those same blue, unblinking eyes.

He tried to dismiss it and her, but there was something about the way she just stood there and took it that made his blood boil. She watched him silently, almost _patiently_, as he raged at her, trying furiously to rouse in her the same angry, unsettled feeling she'd left him with earlier that day. Things that had nothing to do with her, or Sophia, or any of them came rushing out of his mouth like water that had been held too long at bay, and like the shore, she simply absorbed what she could and let the rest wash freely over her.

In that moment, he hated her and her sympathy and understanding more than he knew what to do with.

It didn't matter when she'd gone. He could still feel her eyes on him as though she was out there somewhere, peering at him through the darkness as he paced about his camp. It was an unpleasant feeling, as if she had seen right through his skin all the way down to his bones, like she knew things about him that he didn't want to remember.

She'd never asked him about the scars that stretched across his back as though she knew too well the shame that came from other people's pity, and he knew that at the heart of all the unspoken things between them was a quiet recognition that they were the same. After having spent most his life trying to forget, it was a stark and haunting reflection to have to face.

And it didn't matter the distance he put between them because his own words kept ringing in his ears, and he knew: _he _was the one who was afraid.


	2. Carl: Seeing Ghosts

**Disclaimer**: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>He once thought that with the dead walking around like they'd inherited the earth he'd stop being afraid of things that go bump in the night. The same things that frightened him before the turn had become such a part of his reality that it seemed silly to worry about what imaginary creature might be lurking under the bed when there were monsters all around them.<p>

After Sophia stumbled out of the barn, Carl had stopped caring completely. He stopped believing in stupid kid stuff like magic and miracles and heaven. He no longer wondered what treasure was waiting at the end of the rainbow because he'd seen it now, and he knew: it was bloodstained and dirt splattered. There were no such things as guardian angels, instead he believed in the 9 millimeter in his holster and the speed and accuracy with which he could draw and fire.

But months had passed since then, perhaps even years, and still he saw ghosts.

First it was Dale, a dark red smear in the periphery of his vision reaching out to him, wide-eyed and gurgling. Shane appeared soon after, though it was easier for Carl to look past the clean, black scorch-mark between his eyes than Dale's spilled entrails. At first, he was always at his shoulder, reminding him forcefully to line up his sights, and to grip the pistol firmly in his left hand while gently squeezing back against the trigger with his right. But Carl was a good shot, and after a while he simply hung back, nodding grimly as each round sunk into his target with a similar telltale scorch-mark, like a brand.

Lori never came to him, though sometimes in moments of weakness he wished she would. She was too busy haunting his father, and besides-there was nothing left unfinished between them. She had died, and he had ended it. It was real, and it had been final.

It was a fact of life that Carl had accepted: the dead would walk among the living no matter how many times they tried to put them in the ground, and like the dead, guilty consciences had a way of rising from their graves. He didn't waste time chasing them down, or try to eke out meaning where there was none. It nearly drove his father mad-striving to make sense of why they were serving sentences for crimes they'd had no choice but to commit-but Carl had long since understood. They were not men who slew monsters; they were _all_ monsters in their own ways, and with that understanding he found that he was no longer afraid of them. They just became a part of him, like a second layer of skin.

No, the things that frightened him now were not the same things that had frightened him as a child. He'd once heard it said that the root of all fears was simply a fear of the unknown, and there was little left in the world that could surprise him. Instead, the thing that unsettled him most wasn't bloody or decaying or monstrous at all.

He caught his first glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye one cool clear morning, not as she had been, with torn flesh and hollow eyes, but as she might have been if he'd actually found her hiding out somewhere in the forest like he'd once hoped, instead of locked away in that dark, decrepit barn with the same monsters that had undoubtedly turned her into one.

Her hair had grown longer, her face was fuller. Her eyes were bright and no longer fearful. He still remembered the way she clutched his hand in terror back in Atlanta and he found himself wondering, if he'd been holding on to her like that on the highway, keeping her still and hidden for just a second longer, would she still be with them? Or was her fate inevitable? Would she have been torn from his hands regardless of what he did to stop it, and left him holding nothing but air? simply vanishing in a pillar of smoke, as Daryl's mother had vanished? It was circuitous questions like these which had no answers that he'd long ago given up asking, but now as she smiled and waved at him from beyond the fences he was haunted by them again.

If she had lived, would _he_ have turned out differently?

She called out to him, and her voice was like a familiar piece of music playing behind a closed door at the end of a very long hall. Then she turned and ran once more into the woods, this time laughing and bidding him to follow her.

He never did. He knew too well what dwelled on the other side of those fences, and it certainly wasn't Sophia. Whichever plane her spirit and Shane's and his mother's dwelled in now, who they had been in this one was gone, and they were never coming back.

Instead he shouldered his rifle and took aim at the walkers that were clustered around the gate, gnashing and clawing at the each other like rabid dogs. He fired, and the shot rang out sharp and clear in the still morning air, cutting through the old familiar tune. A flock of birds that had found rest in one of the trees beyond swelled like a black cloud against the sunny sky, cawing angrily as they took flight.

Warily, his eyes slid back to the edge of the forest where Sophia had stood, but there was nothing more to see but the trees. Satisfied, he turned on his heel and walked away.

The world was quiet once more.


End file.
